While visiting the Pittsburgh Zoo, a two-year-old child toppled into the African Painted Dog exhibit. In minutes, the boy was dead. No one denies the tragedy, but many have criticized that neither mother, bystanders, nor zoo personnel jumped in after the child. And though I understand the sentiment, I don’t think people know a whole [...]
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Animals
Animals
Animals
And Other Dinner Conversation We interrupt this Bittel Me This to bring you breaking news: I just got a piece published on Slate.com. And it’s about porcupine sex. That means if tragedy befalls me and I’m wiped off the face this fine earth, my last echo into eternity will be about the tiny spikes on [...]
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Animals
The blue dragon is a sea slug that can steal the powers of its enemies. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. WTF Is That Thing: Nudibranch Edition Look. I’m a lot like you. I spend too much time on Facebook. On Twitter. And yeah, I’ll say it – Pinterest. I read blogs. [...]
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Animals
People are afraid of bears. Rather, they’re afraid of bears’ stomachs. And being in them. Despite the evidence that most bears, in fact, eat very little meat – much less meat they, themselves have killed. Bear Myths Part 1: Mothers & Cubs Bear Myths Part 2: Playing Dead Bear Myths Part 3: Carnivore Carnage We [...]
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Animals
Most people don’t know how to survive a cougar pounce or weather a cloud of Africanized honeybees. But everybody knows you should play dead when attacked by a bear. And that’s what might get you killed. In case you missed it – Bear Myths Part 1: Mothers & Cubs Bear Myths Part 2: Playing Dead [...]
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Animals
Bears are America’s last great woods monsters. They’re the reason why we’re scared to sleep in the forest, why we pack heat in National Parks and why we have to watch Legends of the Fall every time it’s on. Unfortunately, we tend to think we know more about them than we actually do. And that [...]
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Animals
Posted by Jason Bittel on 08 Jul 2012 /
1 Comment
Opossum Opus Part 3 If you were with us on Part 1, you know that off the highway, opossums are sorta indestructible. If you made it through Part 2, you know their penises are hellish, their wombs magical, and their babies cute as the dickens. Now it’s time to learn why I’ve used the word [...]
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Animals
Opossum Reproduction In Part 1, we discussed the opossum’s ability to survive just about everything excluding the highway. And all that immune-to-venom, balk-at-botulism stuff was pretty wild, but it’s nothing compared to the world of marsupial sex. Crank up the BTO, ‘cus baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet. When Opossums Rock It Cute stuff first: [...]
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Animals
Opossums: Survival Machines The opossum is a waddling, mostly nocturnal creature that looks like a cross between a bleached raccoon and a cartoon rat. If you live in North America, you’ve likely seen scores of them as road kill, a sad fact that does nothing to discourage the opossum’s reputation as one of the dumbest [...]
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Animals
Albino Hippos & Dating Advice 1. The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibious) emits a creepy, red liquid from its skin. Long ago, the Greeks presumed this to be blood, because that’s sure as hell what it looks like. 2. There are albino hippos.* They’re pink, freckled and equal parts sort of hideous and kind of cute – [...]
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